It has always been impossible
for me to reconcile myself to any one member of the body politic remaining
out of use. I have always been loath to hide or connive at the weak points
of the community, or to press for its rights without having purged it of
its blemishes. Therefore ever since my settlement in Natal, I had been
endeavouring to clear the community of a charge that had been levelled
against it, not without a certain amount of truth. The charge had often
been made that the Indian was slovenly in his habits and did not keep his
house and surroundings clean. The principal men of the community had, therefore,
already begun to put their houses in order, but house-to-house inspection
was undertaken only when plague was reported to be imminent in Durban.
This was done after consulting, and gaining the approval of, the city fathers,
who had desired our co-operation. Our co-operation made work easier for
them, and at the same time lessened our hardships. For whenever there is
an outbreak of epidemics, the executive as a general rule get impatient,
take excessive measures, and behave to such as may have incurred their
displeasure with a heavy hand. The community saved itself from this oppression
by voluntarily taking sanitary measures.

But I had some bitter experiences.
I saw that I could not so easily count on the help of the community in
getting it to do its own duty, as I could in claiming for it rights. At
some places I met with insults, at others with polite indifference. It
was too much for people to bestir themselves to keep their surroundings
clean. To expect them to find money for the work was out of the question.
These experiences taught me, better than ever before, that without infinite
patience it was impossible to get the people to do any work. It is the
reformer who is anxious for the reform, and not society, from which he
should expect nothing better than opposition, abhorrence, and even mortal
prosecution. Why may not society regard as retrogression what the reformer
holds dear as life itself?

Nevertheless the result of this
agitation was that the Indian community learnt to recognize more or less
the necessity for keeping their houses and environments clean. I gained
the esteem of the authorities. They saw that though I had made it my business
to ventilate grievances and press for rights, I was no less keen and insistent
upon self-purification.

There was one thing, however,
which still remained to be done, namely, the awakening in the Indian settler
of a sense of duty to the motherland. India was poor, the Indian settler
went to South Africa in search of wealth, and he was bound to contribute
part of his earnings for the benefit of his countrymen in the hour of their
adversity. This the settler did during the terrible famines of 1897 and
1899. They contributed handsomely for famine relief, and more so in 1899
than in 1897. We had appealed to Englishmen also for funds, and they had
responded well. Even the indentured Indians gave their share to the contribution,
and the system inaugurated at the time of these famines has been continued
ever since, and we know that Indians in South Africa never fail to send
handsome contributions to India in times of national calamity.

Thus service of the Indians
in South Africa ever revealed to me new implications of truth at every
stage. Truth is like a vast tree, which yields more and more fruit, the
more you nurture it. The deeper the search in the mine of truth, the richer
the discovery of the gems buried there, in the shape of openings for an
ever greater variety of service.